This invention pertains to livestock confinement structures and more particularly to a device for sweeping livestock wastes from the floor--usually a subfloor under a slat or mesh upper surface--into a waste pit or gutter from which the manure can be flushed or will run into a waste pit.
Modern livestock raisers are now customarily using confinement units for the feeding of this product. These units are adapted to confine the livestock in pens with restricted space, better control of environment--particularly cleanliness and temperature of the surroundings--and automated feeding and waste disposal systems.
Waste disposal is a particular problem because of sanitation requirements both within the unit itself and as to the ultimate disposal of the waste material. The development of the slat floor or mesh floor on which the animals are supported, but through which most of the waste material falls has eased the problem of accumulation of the material. It now can be swept from the subfloor to a gutter or the like either at one edge of the floor or running through the center of a longer floor. From the gutter the manure can be flushed or will naturally run to one end and into some sort of disposal unit. This latter unit may be a pit from which the material is pumped to be spread over farm fields as an organic fertilizer or may be a treatment lagoon or the like.
Regardless of the type of disposal, the manure must be moved from the subfloor to the gutter. The usual device for accomplishing that movement is some sort of scraper. Typically, the confinement unit is a long, narrow structure having a central, longitudinal alley raised somewhat above a series of pens. The pens are arranged on opposite sides of the alley along the outer walls of the structure. A single subfloor extends under each row of pens. Thus each set of pens has a relatively long shallow trough-like subfloor running longitudinally of the group of pens. There may be gutters to receive the manure at one end of the subfloor or at both ends or in the middle. A scraper extends transversely of the trough formed by each subfloor and is pulled longitudinally of that trough to scrape the manure toward the gutter.
Problems are frequently encountered in such a system in providing adequate safety stops at the ends of the runs of the scraper. The material being moved tends to rust materials quite rapidly and affects copper as well as iron materials. This inhibits the use of simple limit switches engaged by the scraper as it nears the end of its run. The switch, being so close to the corrosive material has a very short useful life and the device becomes impractical. Therefore, some other system is highly desirable.
Another problem concerns itself with returning the scraper blade to the end of the trough after it has completed its run. If gutters are provided at both ends of the trough, this may not be a problem. But widely spaced gutters are not conducive to compact collecting means and require long pipes or gutters to deliver the material to the central collection pit. Thus, it is desirable to use only a single gutter for each trough-like subfloor and thus to scrape the material in only one direction. However, such construction requires that the scraper be returned to its original starting position without scraping a lot of material in the reverse direction.
By my invention I provide solutions to both problems in unique ways. In order to provide adequate and well protected stop means for my power unit, I use the tensions in the cable to tilt an arm which in turn trips a switch so that excess tension will promptly stop the operation of the device. I also provide unique self-actuating running devices adapted to raise the scraper above the floor on its return run to the starting position so that the scraper is raised enough that it does not scrape material away from the gutter end of the floor.